Smiling at advertising

The new American Express commercial “Don’t Take Chances. Take Charge" makes me smile.

It’s the spot featuring ‘smiles’ made of everyday items in places all around us like bathtubs, hangars, zippers and fences. It suggests that having confidence in your credit card is comforting and therefore smile inducing.

Every show I watch is Tivoed, so I have the option of avoiding commercials altogether. But when the AmEx commercial comes on I watch because it makes me smile and it makes my 5 year old son smile. It has even inspired the two of us to find our own smiles.

Gio and I have found smiles at breakfast, smiles on our bike commute and smiles in the bathroom. The “smile commercial” has put us on high alert. We look for smiles everywhere we go. In one afternoon at a park we found five smiles. Here are some of our smiles.

This commercial does not make me want to get an AmEx card. It does not even convince me that their card is better than any other credit card (I had to watch the commercial on YouTube to glean what the ‘marketing’ message was), but an ad that inspires me to mimic it is pretty impressive nonetheless.